He passed on, and a minute later there was a cry from the inner room. "It's there again! Can't you see the face at the window?"
Winston was in the larger room next moment, and saw, as a startled girl had evidently done, a face that showed distorted and white to ghastliness through the window. He also recognized it, and running back through the hall was outside in another few seconds. Courthorne was leaning against one of the casements as though faint with weakness or pain, and collapsed when Winston dragged him backwards into the shadow. He had scarcely laid him down when the window was opened, and Colonel Barrington's shoulders showed black against the light.
"Come outside alone, sir," said Winston.
Barrington did so, and Winston stood so that no light fell on the pallid face in the grass. "It's a man I have dealings with," he said. "He has evidently ridden out from the settlement and fallen from his horse."
"Why should he fall?" asked the Colonel.
Winston laughed. "There is a perfume about him that is tolerably conclusive. I was, however, on the point of going, and if you will tell your hired man to get my wagon out, I'll take him away quietly. You can make light of the affair to the others."
"Yes," said Barrington. "Unless you think the man is hurt, that would be best, but we'll keep him if you like."
"No, sir. I couldn't trouble you," said Winston hastily. "Men of his kind are also very hard to kill."
Five minutes later he and the hired man hoisted Courthorne into the wagon and packed some hay about him, while, soon after the rattle of wheels sank into the silence of the prairie, the girl Maud Barrington had spoken to rejoined her companion.
"Could Courthorne have seen you coming in?" he asked.